Ladybird Ladybird - The Rhyme

The Rhyme

This traditional verse relates to Ladybirds, brightly-coloured insects commonly viewed as lucky. The English version has been dated to at least 1744, when it appeared in a collection of nursery rhymes. The verse has several popular forms, including:

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,

Your house is on fire and your children are gone,

All except one,

And her name is Ann,

And she hid under the baking pan.

A shorter, grimmer version is also widespread:

Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,

Your house is on fire,

Your children shall burn!

Ann who hides may also be Nan, Anne or Little Anne. She may have hidden under a warming pan, porridge pan, frying pan or even a pudding pan. Some variants are radically different:

All except one and her name was Aileen

And she hid under a soup tureen.

The 'little one' also may not be hiding at all, as in the following:

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.

Your house is on fire;

Your children all roam.

Except little Nan

Who sits in her pan

Weaving her laces as fast as she can.

And from Peterborough:

Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, / Your horse is on foot, your children are gone;

All but one, and that's little John, / And he lies under the grindle stone.

Several more variants exist, some saying "your children alone". Variants are known in the USA, some attached to Doodlebugs.

From Favorite Poems Old and New, Selected for boys and girls by Helen Ferris (1957):

Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home

the field mouse is gone to her nest

the daisies have shut up their sleepy red eyes

and the birds and the bees are at rest

Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home

the glow worm is lighting her lamp

the dew's falling fast, and your fine speckled wings

will flag with the close clinging damp

Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home

the fairy bells tinkle afar

make haste or they'll catch you and harness you fast

with a cobweb to Oberon's star